Patrick Swayze and his wife Lisa in 2008. The pair had been married for 33 years - a rarity in Hollywood. Picture: AP Source: AP
THE wife of Hollywood actor Patrick Swayze has penned a tell-all book, where she recounts their life together and battle against the Dirty Dancing star's pancreatic cancer before he died.
In her book, Worth Fighting For, Lisa Niemi Swayze explains how he was first diagnosed and was never willing to give up on fighting the disease despite chemotherapy failing to work.
"He brought calm determination and a 'mind over matter' attitude to battling his disease," she said.
She also recounts private moments from where they flew together to get chemotherapy, to when she sat with him in his final moments after he slipped into a coma.
Here's an excerpt from her book:
We were so different from each other, and yet so much alike. I was 14 years old when I first laid eyes on him at Houston Music Theatre, when his mother?s dance school merged with my theatre group. Patrick was tanned, buff, had a dazzling smile and a reputation as a Casanova. I wasn?t just a wallflower; I was an expert, practised wallflower.
Our first contact came when we passed each other coming in and out of the theatre, and he reached over and pinched me on the bottom.
"Hey there, cutie!" he said in a friendly yet mischievous tone. "Oh, brother." I rolled my eyes as he passed me.
The whole idea of marriage came about in an abrupt way. It had been five years since we'd first met, and when we found ourselves talking about the future it was mostly in terms of what we wanted as professional dancers.
We?d been living together in a tiny brownstone apartment in New York City. Then, in the middle of a tickling fight, he paused, his arms around me. "What?" I asked curiously. His face flushed. "Why don?t we do it? Why don?t we get married?" And on June 12, 1975, we did.
From being dancers, we went to working in the theatre, from theatre we moved to Los Angeles for film. We were off to the races. We were living and pursuing our dreams.
Over New Year 2008, we were visiting friends in Aspen and raised a glass of champagne for a toast. Patrick grimaced a little when he swallowed but didn?t say anything. A week later, he came to me on a Sunday afternoon, "Do my eyes look yellow to you?"
I peered curiously. "Yes, yes, they do look yellow... Let?s get you to the doctor first thing tomorrow."
Patrick had tests and scans; the results came through the same afternoon. And an alarm sounded inside our heads. There was a 2in-by-1�in mass on the head of his pancreas.
What? What does this mean? The doctor was hesitant about guessing. But we pushed. "We-e-l-l-l, it could be cancer," he said.
The hospital tests came a few days later. Patrick ? or "Buddy", my lifelong nickname for him ? took time to come round, so I knew the truth before he did.
If there was one thing I wanted to show Patrick, it was that death would have to pry him out of my cold, clamped-on fingers. I was not going to let him go easily.
I remember waking on a lumpy hospital cot, dressed in the previous morning?s clothes, brushing the hair out of my face. A young surgeon was sitting at the foot of Patrick?s bed.
I panicked that the doctor was going to say something. But I was too late. Patrick was looking confused. The doctor looked at me. "He doesn?t know?" My stomach turned. I shook my head.
"They found you have pancreatic cancer," he told Patrick. Patrick looked quickly at me, alarm rising in his eyes.
For the next couple of days, medics were assembled who could address any and every possible aspect of the disease. Every single one of them told us there was no cure. "How long have I got?" Patrick was brave enough to ask.
"It depends. Maybe a couple of weeks, maybe a couple of months," replied an oncologist. "I won't kid you. This disease is extremely aggressive."
Later that first day, Patrick turned to me and sighed ruefully. "You know, whenever I heard that someone had pancreatic cancer, my first reaction was, 'Well, he?s outta here.'"
It became clear that the existing treatments out there were just not good enough to stop the disease. We had to get into a study ? a clinical trial with new treatments. That pointed us in the direction of the Stanford Cancer Centre in Palo Alto, California, where Patrick started his programme of chemotherapy.
We were both qualified pilots, and even though Patrick was fighting cancer, he still wanted to fly our plane ? and did so, whenever he felt sharp enough to sit in the left-hand seat (the pilot?s seat). He?d carefully forgo any medication the whole night before.
He'd fly up, but afterwards the dose of anti-nausea medication he was taking with his chemotherapy would make him drowsy so I would fly back. I was afraid that some of the drugs he was taking might disqualify him from flying entirely. But I couldn?t find it in my heart to bring this up.
Flying up to Stanford, past the handsome California mountains and Pacific Ocean on our left, the snow-capped Sierras on our right, the beautiful San Francisco Bay sparkling ahead, was an incredible luxury. And it was a bonus to be doing something that we loved together.
During all this jockeying around we?d been able to keep his diagnosis a secret. But in early March, the news was out ? we didn?t know how ? and it was everywhere.
Letters and emails poured in. There were messages of wonderful support, but also, suddenly, there were people trying to use Patrick?s name and health circumstances for their own gain ? whether to raise money, or to gain publicity for a movie. Representatives of one such film said Patrick backed out because of his illness. Patrick had never even read the script.
I bought a wig, a cute little dark, reddish-brown Victoria Beckham number, and I wore it when I went out. Since we were in the press so much, people?s radar was sensitised and I was recognised a lot.
Getting out of the house was a break for me. I could get lost in the aisles of canned goods or among rows and rows of shirts at TJ Maxx. But when people recognised me, I would see this look of sympathy and care on their faces. How wonderful it is that they cared, but they reminded me of the one thing I was trying to forget for just an hour or two.
We needed magic to happen. On April 2, 2008, we flew up to Stanford for the first set of scans since Patrick began treatment two months earlier. The results showed the lesions, or spots, on his liver had not grown and they were actually less active. The tumour on the head of the pancreas also did not show any new growth. This was confirmation the chemo was actually controlling the disease. As far as pancreatic cancer is concerned, that spells SUCCESS.
Patrick had the curious ability to look at his body in an objective manner. If he was going to dive off a cliff into a lake, as he did on our honeymoon, he?d look at the height, figure out his rotation, gauge his trajectory over the rocks below, and then execute a beautiful swan dive. He had total confidence in his calculations.
He brought calm determination and a "mind over matter" attitude to battling his disease. He approached his whole treatment as if it were an adventure. I?d been with him for more than three decades and seen the worst and the best of who he could be. Now, faced with the worst that could happen, I saw a true hero emerge. It was as if he?d dropped his cloak and revealed his true self: humble, brave, loving, kind, wise and tough.
If there was one thing I wanted to show Patrick, it was that death would have to pry him out of my cold, clamped-on fingers. I was not going to let him go easily.
On June 12, 2008, we were on our ranch in New Mexico for the 33rd anniversary of our marriage. Once Patrick was feeling better and his treatment was stable, we began spending as much time there as we could. Rancho de Dias Alegres had been our longtime dream from when we were first together. It is several thousand acres of mountain forest, streams, and open rolling terrain of raw New Mexico beauty.
For our anniversary, I fixed a picnic of food that I could heat up over a fire, and we headed out to our favourite camping spot ? a lovely sloping meadow with a pond, its surface reflecting Hermit?s Peak in the distance. We had lunch off a red-checked tablecloth set out with champagne for me and Gatorade for him, and enjoyed the afternoon, watching the sun set with the smell of warm pine surrounding us.
In late June, we joined friends at what we called the "Burro Pasture" for a round-up of the cattle, doctoring and branding the new calves near the Tecolote river. We gathered up about 30 mamas and their young. Patrick, dressed in his cowboy gear and chaps, jumped on a horse well-trained for cattle work to start roping and bringing calves over to be treated. All the cowboys at the ranch like to do things the old-fashioned way.
Then it started to rain. One of our freezing afternoon thunder-showers. Patrick was soaked to the bone. We were wet and cold as we hurried to load the horses, grab our overcoats, and get in our cars. What the hell. We were having fun! I have to say inside I was laughing. I was laughing happily because he wasn?t even supposed to be alive. And here he was, doing ranch work, fully living his life.
Despite his illness and the discomfort, Patrick was determined to continue working on The Beast, a new TV detective series being filmed in Chicago. Returning to a project that demanded so much time and commitment was bold. But it proved an amazing experience, and an inspiration to many. The schedule was gruelling: every day was a living victory.
But Patrick was transformed. Before, he had been spending the majority of his time in bed. In Chicago, he was like a different man. His enormous burst of energy floored me. He was like his old take-charge self, going non-stop. I got Patrick back. He even showed occasional flashes of "star" behaviour, the stuff that would always drive me crazy, like making last-minute, arbitrary demands and suddenly being the unquestionable authority on ... just everything in the universe.
Patrick was also adamant that he must not be "written down". Meaning, he didn?t want the show to make his role less demanding. He came back from the set one day, shaking his head, steam fizzing out of his ears.
"They didn?t want me to jump over the wall," he exclaimed. "I?m supposed to chase this guy and jump over the wall after him. They wanted the stuntman to do it. No man, I?m jumping over the wall!" From the start of the shoot into the first month or two, Patrick actually started to do better. When we were into the month of September, he turned to me with hope in his eyes, saying: "I?ve been feeling so good?... I almost feel normal."
We had our wish granted for our New Year?s visit to New Mexico: it snowed. Heavily. Big white flakes covering the mountains, weighing down the branches, covering the ground in pure, velvety white.
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